What is stem cell technology and cell therapy?
Mr. McIntosh: Stem cell technology and cell therapy, as we practice it, is the selection, manipulation, expansion and use of cells to achieve a particular therapeutic end. The major cell type that we concentrate on today is the hematopoietic stem cell, or, quite simply, the blood and immune system stem cell. It’s known in shorthand as the CD34 stem cell. This cell is, essentially, the master cell that creates all the blood and immune system components in the body. Now what we do, at least in the initial application, is use our instrumentation, our plastic disposables, and our biological reagents to capture these stem cells from cancer patients before they undergo high dose chemotherapy. Those cells are then re-infused into the patient after they receive treatment to restore the blood and immune system, which were essentially destroyed by the high dose chemotherapy. The beauty of this process is that our technology not only captures the right cells to rebuild the immune system, but it a
